which he came of age, when, though his father was still living, he felt
himself an independent man.

One of his first steps, however, was to qualify this independence by
marriage. If family tradition be correct, he was as heedless and
impetuous in this the first important step of his life, as he seems to
have been in his public career. The lady was Elizabeth, daughter of Sir
Nicholas Tufton, afterwards created Earl of Thanet.

In almost the first page of his account-book he enters all the charges
of this marriage, the different dresses he provided, his wedding
presents, &c. As to his bride, the first pleasing intelligence which
greeted the young knight, after passing his pledge to take her for
"richer for poorer," was, that the latter alternative was his. Sir
Nicholas had jockied the youth out of the promised "trousseau," and
handed over his daughter to Sir Edward, with nothing but a few shillings
in her purse. She came unfurnished with even decent apparel, and her new
lord had to supply her forthwith with necessary clothing. In a
subsequent page, when he comes to detail the purchases which he was, in
consequence, obliged to make for his bride, he gives full vent to his
feelings on this niggardly conduct of the father, and, in recording the
costs of his own outfit, his very first words have a smack of bitterness
in them, which is somewhat ludicrous--

"Medio de donte leporum
Surgit amari aliquid."

He seems to sigh over his own folly and vanity in preparing a gallant
bridal for one who met it so unbecomingly.